"I'll go and see if the supper's well done, and I'll take a shy at your ante," replied Mr. Griffin. "But when it comes to the balance of the programme—well, I'm a lawyer, you know, and you couldn't expect me to witness the affair. I might have to take your cases and prove an alibi, you know, and I couldn't conscientiously do that if I was on hand at the time."

"The Ku-Klux don't have to have alibis," suggested Larry Pulliam.

"Perhaps not, still—" Apparently Mr. Griffin disposed of the matter with a gesture.

When all the details of their plan had been carefully arranged, the amateur Ku-Klux went filing out, the noise they made dying away like the echoes of a storm.

Major Perdue leaned his head against the back of his chair, closed his eyes, and sat there so quietly that I thought he was asleep. But this was a mistake. Suddenly he began to laugh, and he laughed until the tears ran down his face. It was laughter that was contagious, and presently I found myself joining in without knowing why. This started the Major afresh, and we both laughed until exhaustion came to our aid.

"O Lord!" cried the Major, panting, "I haven't had as much fun since the war, and a long time before. That blamed Pulliam is going to walk into a trap of his own setting. Now you jest watch how he goes out ag'in."

"But I'll not be there," I suggested.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the Major, "you can't afford to miss it. It'll be the finest piece of news your paper ever had. You'll go to supper with me—" He paused. "No, I'll go home, send Valentine to her Aunt Emmy's, get Blasengame to come around, and we'll have supper about nine. That'll fix it. Some of them chaps might have an eye on my house, and I don't want 'em to see anybody but me go in there. Now, if you don't come at nine, I'll send Blasengame after you."

Then there was a long pause, which was broken by an attempt on the part of Major Perdue to give Aunt Minervy Ann an inkling of the events likely to happen during the night. She seemed to be both hard of hearing and dull of understanding when the subject was broached; or she may have suspected the Major was joking or trying to "run a rig" on her. Her questions and comments, however, were very characteristic.

"I dunner what dey want wid Hamp," she said. "Ef dey know'd how no-count he is, dey'd let 'im 'lone. What dey want wid 'im?"

"Well, two or three of the country boys and maybe some of the town chaps are going to call on him between midnight and day. They want to take him out to the cross-roads. Hadn't you better fix 'em up a little snack? Hamp won't want anything, but the boys will feel a little hungry after the job is over."

"Nobody ain't never tell me dat de Legislatur' wuz like de Free Masons, whar dey have ter ride a billy goat an' go down in a dry well wid de chains a-clankin'. I done tol' Hamp dat he better not fool wid white folks' do-in's."

"Only the colored members have to be initiated," explained the Major, solemnly.

"What does dey do wid um?" inquired Aunt Minervy Ann.

"Well," replied the Major, "they take 'em out to the nearest cross-roads, put ropes around their necks, run the ropes over limbs, and pull away as if they were drawing water from a well."

"What dey do dat fer?" asked Aunt Minervy Ann, apparently still oblivious to the meaning of it all.

"They want to see which'll break first, the ropes or the necks," the Major explained.

"Ef dey takes Hamp out," remarked Aunt Minervy Ann, tentatively—feeling her way, as it were—"what time will he come back?"

"You've heard about the Resurrection Morn, haven't you, Minervy Ann?" There was a pious twang in the Major's voice as he pronounced the words.

"I hear de preacher say sump'n 'bout it," replied Aunt Minervy Ann.

"Well," said the Major, "along about that time Hamp will return. I hope his record is good enough to give him wings."

"Shuh! Marse Tumlin! you-all des fool'n' me. I don't keer—Hamp ain't gwine wid um. I tell you dat right now."

"Oh, he may not want to go," persisted the Major, "but he'll go all the same if they get their hands on him."

"My life er me!" exclaimed Aunt Minervy Ann, bristling up, "does you-all 'speck I'm gwine ter let um take Hamp out dat away? De fus' man come ter my door, less'n it's one er you-all, I'm gwine ter fling a pan er hot embers in his face ef de Lord'll gi' me de strenk. An' ef dat don't do no good, I'll scald um wid b'ilin' water. You hear dat, don't you?"

"Minervy Ann," said the Major, sweetly, "have you ever heard of the Ku-Klux?"

"Yasser, I is!" she exclaimed with startling emphasis. She stopped still and gazed hard at the Major. In response, he merely shrugged his shoulders and raised his right hand with a swift gesture that told the whole story.

"Name er God! Marse Tumlin, is you an' Marse Bolivar and dish yer young genterman gwine ter set down here flat-footed and let dem Ku-kluckers scarify Hamp?"

"Why should we do anything? You've got everything arranged. You're going to singe 'em with hot embers, and you're going to take their hides off with scalding water. What more do you want?" The Major spoke with an air of benign resignation.

Aunt Minervy Ann shook her head vigorously. "Ef deyer de Kukluckers, fire won't do um no harm. Dey totes der haids in der han's."

"Their heads in their hands?" cried Colonel Blasengame, excitedly.

"Dat what dey say, suh," replied Aunt Minervy Ann.

Colonel Blasengame looked at his watch. "Tumlin, I'll have to ask you to excuse me to-night," he said. "I—well, the fact is, I have a mighty important engagement up town. I'm obliged to fill it." He turned to Aunt Minervy Ann: "Did I understand you to say the Ku-Klux carry their heads in their hands?"

"Dat what folks tell me. I hear my own color sesso," replied Aunt Minervy Ann.

"I'd be glad to stay with you, Tumlin," the Colonel declared; "but—well, under the circumstances, I think I'd better fill that engagement. Justice to my family demands it."

"Well," responded Major Perdue, "if you are going, I reckon we'd just as well go, too."

"Huh!" exclaimed Aunt Minervy Ann, "ef gwine's de word, dey can't nobody beat me gittin' way fum here. Dey may beat me comin' back, I ain't 'sputin' dat; but dey can't beat me gwine 'way. I'm ol', but I got mighty nigh ez much go in me ez a quarter-hoss."

Colonel Blasengame leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. "It seems to me, Tumlin, we might compromise on this. Suppose we get Hamp to come in here. Minervy Ann can stay out there in the kitchen and throw a rock against the back door when the Ku-Klux come."

Aunt Minervy Ann fairly gasped. "Who? Me? I'll die fust. I'll t'ar down dat do'; I'll holler twel ev'ybody in de neighborhood come a-runnin'. Ef you don't b'lieve me, you des try me. I'll paw up dat back-yard."

Major Perdue went to the back door and called Hamp, but there was no answer. He called him a second time, with the same result.

"Well," said the Major, "they've stolen a march on us. They've come and carried him off while we were talking."

"No, suh, dey ain't, needer. I know right whar he is, an' I'm gwine atter 'im. He's right 'cross de street dar, colloguin' wid dat ol' Ceely Ensign. Dat's right whar he is."

Then she began to laugh, and pretty soon went through the whole episode for our edification, dwelling with unction on that part where the unfortunate victim of her jealousy had called her "Miss 'Nervy." The more she laughed the more serious Hamp became.

At the proper time he was told of the visitation that was to be made by the Ku-Klux, and this information seemed to perplex and worry him no little. But his face lit up with genuine thankfulness when the programme for the occasion was announced to him. He and Minervy Ann were to remain in the house and not show their heads until the Major or the Colonel or their guest came to the back door and drummed on it lightly with the fingers.

Then the arms—three shot-guns—were brought out, and I noticed with some degree of surprise, that as the Major and the Colonel began to handle these, their spirits rose perceptibly. The Major hummed a tune and the Colonel whistled softly as they oiled the locks and tried the triggers. The Major, in coming home, had purchased four pounds of mustard-seed shot, and with this he proceeded to load two of the guns. In the third he placed only powder. This harmless weapon was intended for me, while the others were to be handled by Major Perdue and Colonel Blasengame. I learned afterward that the arrangement was made solely for my benefit. The Major and the Colonel were afraid that a young hand might become excited and fire too high at close range, in which event mustard-seed shot would be as dangerous as the larger variety.

At twelve o'clock I noticed that both Hamp and Aunt Minervy Ann were growing restless.

"You hear dat clock, don't you, Marse Tumlin?" said Minervy as the chimes died away. "Ef you don't min', de Ku-kluckers'll be a-stickin' der haids in de back do'."

But the Major and the Colonel were playing a rubber of seven-up (or high-low-Jack) and paid no attention. It was a quarter after twelve when the game was concluded and the players pushed their chairs back from the table.

"Ef you don't fin' um in de yard waitin' fer you, I'll be fooled might'ly," remarked Aunt Minervy Ann.

"Go and see if they're out there," said the Major.

"Me, Marse Tumlin? Me? I wouldn't go out dat do' not for ham."

The Major took out his watch. "They'll eat and drink until twelve or a little after, and then they'll get ready to start. Then they'll have another drink all 'round, and finally they'll take another. It'll be a quarter to one or after when they get in the grove in the far end of the lot. But we'll go out now and see how the land lays. By the time they get here, our eyes will be used to the darkness."

The light was carried to a front room, and we groped our way out at the back door the best we could. The night was dark, but the stars were shining. I noticed that the belt and sword of Orion had drifted above the tree-tops in the east, following the Pleiades. In a little while the darkness seemed to grow less dense, and I could make out the outlines of trees twenty feet away.

Behind one of these trees, near the outhouse in which Hamp and Aunt Minervy lived, I was to take my stand, while the Major and the Colonel were to go farther into the wood-lot so as to greet the would-be Ku-Klux as they made their retreat, of which Major Perdue had not the slightest doubt.

"You stand here," said the Major in a whisper. "We'll go to the far-end of the lot where they're likely to come in. They'll pass us all right enough, but as soon as you see one of 'em, up with the gun an' lam aloose, an' before they can get away give 'em the other barrel. Then you'll hear from us."

Major Perdue and Colonel Blasengame disappeared in the darkness, leaving me, as it were, on the inner picket line. I found the situation somewhat ticklish, as the saying is. There was not the slightest danger, and I knew it, but if you ever have occasion to stand out in the dark, waiting for something to happen, you'll find there's a certain degree of suspense attached to it. And the loneliness and silence of the night will take on shape almost tangible. The stirring of the half-dead leaves, the chirping of a belated cricket, simply emphasized the loneliness and made the silence more profound. At intervals, all nature seemed to heave a deep sigh, and address itself to slumber again.

In the house I heard the muffled sound of the clock chime one, but whether it was striking the half-hour or the hour I could not tell. Then I heard the stealthy tread of feet. Some one stumbled over a stick of timber, and the noise was followed by a smothered exclamation and a confused murmur of voices. As the story-writers say, I knew that the hour had come. I could hear whisperings, and then I saw a tall shadow steal from behind Aunt Minervy's house, and heard it rap gently on the door. I raised the gun, pulled the hammer back, and let drive. A stream of fire shot from the gun, accompanied by a report that tore the silence to atoms. I heard a sharp exclamation of surprise, then the noise of running feet, and off went the other barrel. In a moment the Major and the Colonel opened on the fugitives. I heard a loud cry of pain from one, and, in the midst of it all, the mustard-seed shot rattled on the plank fence like hominy-snow on a tin roof.

The next instant I heard some one running back in my direction, as if for dear life. He knew the place apparently, for he tried to go through the orchard, but just before he reached the orchard fence, he uttered a half-strangled cry of terror, and then I heard him fall as heavily as if he had dropped from the top of the house.

It was impossible to imagine what had happened, and it was not until we had investigated the matter that the cause of the trouble was discovered. A wire clothes-line, stretched across the yard, had caught the would-be Ku-Klux under the chin, his legs flew from under him, and he had a fall, from the effects of which he did not recover for a long time. He was a young man about town, very well connected, who had gone into the affair in a spirit of mischief. We carried him into the house, and administered to his hurts the best we could; Aunt Minervy Ann, be it said to her credit, being more active in this direction than any of us.

On the Tuesday following, the county paper contained the news in a form that remains to this day unique. It is hardly necessary to say that it was from the pen of Major Tumlin Perdue.

"Last Saturday afternoon our local editor was informed by a prominent citizen that if we would apply to Major Purdue we would be put in possession of a very interesting piece of news. Acting upon this hint, ye local yesterday went to Major Perdue, who, being in high good-humor, wrote out the following with his own hand:

"'Late Saturday night, while engaged with a party of friends in searching for a stray dog on my premises, I was surprised to see four or five men climb over my back fence and proceed toward my residence. As my most intimate friends do not visit me by climbing over my back fence, I immediately deployed my party in such a manner as to make the best of a threatening situation. The skirmish opened at my kitchen-door, with two rounds from a howitzer. This demoralized the enemy, who promptly retreated the way they came. One of them, the leader of the attacking party, carried away with him two loads of mustard-seed shot, delivered in the general neighborhood and region of the coat-tails, which, being on a level with the horizon, afforded as fair a target as could be had in the dark. I understand on good authority that Mr. Larry Pulliam, one of our leading and deservedly popular citizens, has had as much as a quart of mustard-seed shot picked from his carcass. Though hit in a vulnerable spot, the wound is not mortal.—T. Perdue.'"

I did my best to have Mr. Pulliam's name suppressed, but the Major would not have it so.

"No, sir," he insisted; "the man has insulted me behind my back, and he's got to cut wood or put down the axe."

Naturally this free and easy card created quite a sensation in Halcyondale and the country round about. People knew what it would mean if Major Perdue's name had been used in such an off-hand manner by Mr. Pulliam, and they naturally supposed that a fracas would be the outcome. Public expectation was on tiptoe, and yet the whole town seemed to take the Major's card humorously. Some of the older citizens laughed until they could hardly sit up, and even Mr. Pulliam's friends caught the infection. Indeed, it is said that Mr. Pulliam, himself, after the first shock of surprise was over, paid the Major's audacious humor the tribute of a hearty laugh. When Mr. Pulliam appeared in public, among the first men he saw was Major Perdue. This was natural, for the Major made it a point to be on hand. He was not a ruffler, but he thought it was his duty to give Mr. Pulliam a fair opportunity to wreak vengeance on him. If the boys about town imagined that a row was to be the result of this first meeting, they were mistaken. Mr. Pulliam looked at the Major and then began to laugh.

"Major Perdue," he said, "I'd a heap rather you'd pull your shot-gun on me than your pen."

And that ended the matter.

THE SHIP OF STARS
By A. T. Quiller-Couch
(Q.)

XIV
VOICES FROM THE SEA

Before winter and the long nights came round again, Taffy had become quite a clever carpenter. From the first his quickness fairly astonished the Bryanite, who at the best was but a journeyman and soon owned himself beaten.

"I doubt," said he, "if you'll ever make so good a man as your father; but you can't help making a better workman." He added, with his eyes on the boy's face, "There's one thing in which you might copy 'em. He hasn't much of a gift, but he lays it 'pon the altar."

By this time Taffy had resumed his lessons. Every day he carried a book or two in the satchel with his dinner, and read or translated aloud while his father worked. Two hours were allowed for this in the morning, and again two in the afternoon. Sometimes a day would be set apart during which they talked nothing but Latin. Difficulties in the text of their authors they postponed until the evening, and worked them out at home, after supper, with the help of grammar and dictionary.

The boy was not unhappy, on the whole; though for weeks together he longed for sight of George Vyell, who seemed to have vanished into space, or into that limbo where his childhood lay like a toy in a lumber-room. Taffy seldom turned the key of that room. The stories he imagined now were not about fairies or heroes, but about himself. He wanted to be a great man and astonish the world. Just how the world was to be astonished he did not clearly see, even in his dreams; but the triumph, in whatever shape it came, was to involve a new gown for his mother, and for his father a whole library of books.

Mr. Raymond never went back to his books now, except to help Taffy. The Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews was laid aside. "Some day!" he told Humility. The Sunday congregation had dwindled to a very few, mostly farm people; Squire Moyle having threatened to expel any tenant of his who dared to set foot within the church.

In the autumn two things happened which set Taffy wondering.

During the first three years at Nannizabuloe old Mrs. Venning had regularly been carried downstairs to dine with the family. The sea-air (she said) had put new life into her. But now she seldom moved from her room, and Taffy seldom saw her except at night, when—after the old childish custom—he knocked at her door to wish her pleasant dreams and pull up the weights of the tall clock which stood by her bed's head.

One night he asked, carelessly, "What do you want with the clock? Lying here you don't need to know the time; and its ticking must keep you awake."

"So it does, child; but, bless you, I like it."

"Like being kept awake?"

"Dear, yes! I have enough of rest and quiet up here. You mind the litany I used to say over to you?—Parson Kempthorne taught it to us girls when I was in service with him; 'twas made up, he said, by another old Devonshire parson, years and years ago—

That's it. You wouldn't think how quiet it is up here all day. But at night, when you're in bed and sleeping, all the house begins to talk; little creakings of the furniture, you know, and the wind in the chimney, and sometimes the rain in the gutters running—it's all talk to me. Mostly it's quite sociable too; but sometimes, in rainy weather, the tune changes, and then it's like some poor soul in bed and sobbing to itself. That's when the verse comes in:

"And then the clock's ticking is a wonderful comfort. Tick-tack, tick-tack! and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing up to be a man, and the minutes running and trickling away to my deliverance——"

"Granny!"

"My dear, I'm as well off as most; but that isn't saying I sha'n't be glad to go and take the pain in my joints to a better land. Before we came here, in militia-time, I used to lie and listen for the buglers, but now I've only the clock. No more bugles for me, I suppose, till I hear them blown on t'other side of Jordan."

Taffy remembered how he too had lain and listened to the bugles; and with that he suddenly saw his childhood, as it were a small round globe set within a far larger one and wrapped around with other folks' thoughts. He kissed his grandmother and went away wondering; and as he lay down that night it still seemed wonderful to him that she should have heard those bugles, and more wonderful that night after night for years she should have been thinking of him while he slept, and he never have guessed it.

One morning, some three weeks later, he and his father were putting on their oilskins before starting to work—for it had been blowing hard through the night and the gale was breaking up in floods of rain—when they heard a voice hallooing in the distance. Humility heard it too and turned swiftly to Taffy. "Run upstairs, dear. I expect it's someone sent from Tresedder Farm; and if so, he'll want to see your father alone."

Mr. Raymond frowned. "No," he said; "the time is past for that."

A fist hammered on the door. Mr. Raymond threw it open.

"Brigantine—on the sands—half a mile this side of the lighthouse!" Taffy saw across his father's shoulder a gleam of yellow oilskins and a flapping sou-wester' hat. The panting voice belonged to Sam Udy—son of old Bill Udy—a laborer at Tresedder.

"I'll go at once," said Mr. Raymond. "Run you for the coast-guard."

The oilskins went by the window; the side gate clashed to.

"Is it a wreck?" cried Taffy. "May I go with you?"

"Yes, there may be a message to run with."

From the edge of the towans, where the ground dipped steeply to the long beach, they saw the wreck, about a mile up the coast and, as well as they could judge, a hundred or a hundred-and-fifty yards out. She lay almost on her beam-ends, with the waves sweeping high across her starboard quarter, and never less than six ranks of ugly breakers between her and dry land. A score of watchers—in the distance they looked like emmets—were gathered by the edge of the surf. But the coast-guard had not arrived yet.

"The tide is ebbing, and the rocket will reach. Can you see anyone aboard?"

Taffy spied through his hands, but could see no one. His father set off running and he followed, half-blinded by the rain, at every fourth step foundering knee-deep in loose sand or tripping in a rabbit hole. They had covered three-fourths of the distance when Mr. Raymond pulled up and waved his hat as the coast-guard carriage swept into view over a ridge to the right and came plunging across the main valley of the towans. It passed them close—the horses fetlock-deep in sand, with heads down and heaving, smoking shoulders; the coast-guardsmen with keen strong faces like heroes'—and the boy longed to copy his father and send a cheer after them as they went galloping by. But something rose in his throat.

He ran after the carriage, and reached the shore just as the first rocket shot singing out toward the wreck. By this time at least a hundred miners had gathered, and between their legs he caught a glimpse of two figures stretched at length on the wet sand. He had never looked on a dead body before. The faces of these were hidden by the crowd; and he hung about the fringe of it, dreading and yet courting a sight of them.

The first rocket was swept down the wind to leeward of the wreck. The chief officer judged his second beautifully and the line fell clean across the vessel and all but amidships. A figure started up from the lee of the deckhouse and springing into the main shrouds grasped it and made it fast. The beach being too low for them to work the cradle clear above the breakers, the coast-guardsmen carried the shore end of the line up the shelving cliff and fixed it. Within ten minutes the cradle was run out, and within twenty, the first man came swinging shoreward.

Four men were brought ashore alive, the captain last. The other two of the crew of six lay on the sands, with Mr. Raymond kneeling beside them. He had covered their faces, and, still on his knees, gave the order to lift them into the carriage. Taffy noticed that he was obeyed without demur or question. And there flashed on his memory a gray morning, not unlike this one, when he had missed his father at breakfast: "He had been called away suddenly," Humility had explained, "and there would be no lessons that day," and had kept the boy indoors all the morning and busy with a netting-stitch he had been bothering her to teach him.

"Father," he asked as they followed the cart, "does this often happen?"

"Your mother hasn't thought it well for you to see these sights."

"Then it has happened often?"

"I have buried seventeen," said Mr. Raymond.

That afternoon he showed Taffy their graves. "I know the names of all but two. The bodies have marks about them—tattooed, you know—and that helps. And I write to their relatives or friends, and restore whatever small property may be found on them. I have often wished to put up some grave-stone, or a wooden cross, with their names. I keep a book and enter all particulars, and where each is laid."

He went to his chest in the vestry and took out the volume—a cheap account book, ruled for figures. Taffy turned over the pages.

Nov. 3rd. 187-. Brig "James and Maria:" J. D., fair-haired, height 5 ft. 8 in., marked on chest with initials and cross swords, tattooed, also anchor and coil of rope on right fore-arm: large brown mole on right shoulder-blade. Striped flannel drawers: otherwise naked: no property of any kind.

Ditto. Grown man, age 40 or thereabouts: dark; iron gray beard; lovers' knot tattooed on right fore-arm, with initials R. L., E. W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers (blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. Silver chain in pocket, with free-mason's token: a half-crown, a florin, and four-pence——and so on. On the opposite page were entered the full names and details afterwards discovered, with notes of the Vicar's correspondence, and position of the grave.

"They ought to have grave-stones," said Mr. Raymond. "But as it is I can only get about thirty shillings for the funeral from the county rate. The balance has come out of my pocket—from two to three pounds for each. From the beginning the squire refused to help to bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn't a local claim."

"Hullo!" said Taffy: for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this entry:—

Jan. 30th, 187-. S. S. "Rifleman" (all hands). Cargo, China-clay: W. P., Age, about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short and curled, height 5 ft. 10¾ in. Initials tattooed on chest under a three-masted ship and semi-circle of seven stars; clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked with same initial in red cotton: pockets empty——

"But he was in the navy!" cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry.

"Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You'll see it on the opposite page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbor, and shipped on board a tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on the voyage back. William Pellow he was called; his mother lives but ten miles up the coast; she never heard of it until six weeks after."

"But we—I, I mean—knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on Toby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at Indian Queen's? He showed me his tattoo marks that day."

And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some from near, but all had hung muted and arrested.

The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the Fifteen Balls, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain.

"We've been hearing," said the Captain, "of your difficulties, sir: likewise your kindness to other poor sea-faring chaps. We have liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if you can put us on to a job, why we're staying over the funeral, and a day's work or more after that won't hurt us one way or another."

Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and fixed in place.

"I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders."

"Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don't want ladders. With a sling, Bill, hey?—and a couple of tackles. You leave it to we, sir."

He went off to turn over the gear salved from his vessel, and early next forenoon had the apparatus rigged up and ready. He was obliged to leave it at this point, having been summoned across to Falmouth, to report to his agents. His last words before starting were addressed to his crew. "I reckon you can fix it now, boys. There's only one thing more, and don't you forget it: any man that wants to spit must go outside."

That afternoon Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of themselves like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and fixed; and they broke off work to attend their shipmates' funeral. After the funeral they fell to, again, though more silently, and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish.

They left early next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps and trudged away over the rise toward the cross-roads. Away to the left in the wintry sunshine, a speck of scarlet caught his eye against the blue-gray of the town. He watched it as it came slowly toward him, and his heart leapt—yet not quite as he had expected it to leap.

For it was George Vyell. George had lately been promoted to "pink" and made a gallant figure on his strapping gray hunter. For the first time Taffy felt ashamed of his working suit and would have slipped back to the church. But George had seen him, and pulled up.

"Hullo!" said he.

"Hullo!" said Taffy; and, absurdly enough, could find no more to say.

"How are you getting on?"

"Oh, I'm all right." There was another pause. "How's Honoria?"

"Oh, she's all right. I'm riding over there now; they meet at Tredinnis to-day." He tapped his boot with his hunting crop.

"Don't you have any lessons now?" asked Taffy, after awhile.

"Dear me, yes; I've got a tutor. He's no good at it. But what made you ask?"

Really Taffy could not tell. He had asked merely for the sake of saying something. George pulled out a gold watch.

"I must be getting on. Well, good-by!"

"Good-by!"

And that was all.

XV
TAFFY'S APPRENTICESHIP

They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who in addition to his other trades was something of a glazier, had taken the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they curtained.

But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one evening toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools.

"Tell 'ee what 'tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone that'll teach 'er smithy-work. There's no sense in this cold hammering."

"Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire."

"Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? He's a first-rate workman."

"That is more than six miles away."

"No matter for that. There's Joll's Farm close by; Farmer Joll would board and lodge 'en for nine shilling a week, and glad of the chance; and he could come home for Sundays."

Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at once.

"I may be calling before long, to look you up," said the Bryanite, "but mind you do no more than nod when you see me."

Joll's Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was swept as clean as a dairy.

A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and strings of onions. The pans over the fireplace were bright as mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place.

"I'll go and tell the mistress," said the maid; but she paused at the door. "I suppose you don't remember me, now?"

"No," said Taffy, truthfully.

"My name's Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair up last Easter, and that makes a difference."

"Why, you were only a child."

"I was seventeen last week. And—I say, do you know the Bryanite, over to Innis?—Preacher Jacky Pascoe?"

He nodded, remembering the caution given him.

"I got salvation off him. Master and mis'ess, they've got salvation too; but they take it very quiet. They're very fond of one another; if you please one you'll please both. They let me walk over to prayer-meetin' once a week. But I don't go by Mendarva's shop—that's where you work—though 'tis the shortest way; because there's a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I'm a terrible coward for ghosts."

She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was staring at a "neck" of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above the mantle-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen.

Taffy—without any reason—had expected to see a middle-aged house-wife. But Mrs. Joll was hardly over thirty; a shapely woman, with a plain, pleasant face and auburn hair, the wealth of which she concealed by wearing it drawn straight back from the forehead and plaited in the severest coil behind. She shook hands.

"You'll like a drink of milk before I show you your room?"

Taffy was grateful for the milk. While he drank it, the voices of the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter.

"That will be their father come home," said Mrs. Joll and going to the side-door called to him. "John, put the children down; Mr. Raymond's son is here."

Mr. Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face.

"Glad to see you," said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while the two children stared at Taffy.

After a minute, the boy said, "My name's Bob. Come and play horses, too."

Farmer Joll looked at Taffy shyly. "Shall we?"

"Mr. Raymond will be tired enough already," his wife suggested.

"Not a bit," declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off furiously prancing after the farmer.

By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith.

Mendarva's forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll's Farm in the valley. And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like those you see on the statues of Nineveh. On Sundays he parted his beard carefully and tied the ends with little bows of scarlet ribbon; but on week days it curled at will over his mighty chest. He had one assistant whom he called "the Dane;" a red-haired youth as tall as himself and straighter from the waist down. Mendarva's knees had come together with years of poising and swinging his great hammer.

"He's little, but he'll grow," said he, after eying Taffy up and down. "Dane, come fore and tell me if we'll make a workman of 'en."

The Dane stepped forward and passed his hands over the boy's shoulders and down his ribs. "He's slight, but he'll fill out. Good pair o' shoulders. Give's hold o' your hand, my son."

Taffy obeyed; not very well liking to be handled thus.

"Hand like a lady's. Tidy wrist, though. He'll do, master."

So Taffy was passed, given a leathern apron, and set to his first task of keeping the forge-fire raked and the bellows going, while the hammers took up the music he was to listen to for a year to come.

This music kept the day merry; and beyond the window along the bright high-road there was usually something worth seeing—farm-carts, jowters' carts, the doctor and his gig, pedlars and Johnny-fortnights, the miller's wagons from the valley-bottom below Joll's Farm, and on Tuesdays and Fridays, the market van going and returning. Mendarva knew or speculated upon everybody, and, with half the passers-by, broke off work and passed the time of day, leaning on his hammer. But down at the farm all was strangely quiet, in spite of the children's voices; and at night the quietness positively kept Taffy awake, listening to the pur-r of the pigeons in their cote against the house-wall, thinking of his grandmother awake at home and listening to the tick-tack of her tall clock. Often when he woke to the early summer daybreak and saw through his attic-window the gray shadows of the sheep, still and long, on the slope above the farmstead, his ear was wanting something, asking for something; for the murmur of the sea never reached this inland valley. And he would lie and long for the chirruping of the two children in the next room and the drawing of bolts and clatter of milk-pails below stairs.

He had a plenty to eat, and that plenty simple and good; and clean linen to sleep between. The kitchen was his, except on Saturday nights, when Mrs. Joll and Lizzie tubbed the children there; and then he would carry his books off to the best parlor, or stroll around the farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails in Mr. Joll's gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a tell-tale stoop—for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some five years older than his wife.

One Saturday evening he unburdened his heart to Taffy. It happened at the end of the hay-harvest, and the two were leaning over a gate discussing the yet unthatched rick.

"What I say is," declared the farmer, quite inconsequently, "a man must be able to lay his troubles 'pon the Lord. I don't mean his work, but his troubles; and go home and shut the door and be happy with his wife and children. Now I tell you that for months—iss, years—after Bob was born, I kept plaguing mysel' in the fields, thinking that some harm might have happened to the child. Why, I used to make an excuse and creep home, and then if I see'd a blind pulled down, you wouldn't think how my heart'd go thump; and I'd stand wi' my hand on the door-hapse an' say, 'If so be the Lord have took'n, I must go and comfort Susan—not my will but Thine, Lord—but, Lord, don't 'ee be cruel this time!' And then find the cheeld right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off the carpet! After awhile my wife guessed what was wrong—I used to make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, 'Look here, the Lord and me'll see after Bob; and if you can't keep to your own work without poking your nose into ours, then I married for worse and not for better.' Then it came upon me that by leaving the Lord to look after my job I'd been treating Him like a farm-laborer. It's the things you can't help He looks after—not the work."

A few evenings later there came a knock at the door, and Lizzie, who went to open it, returned with the Bryanite skipping behind her.

"Blessings be upon this here house!" he cried, cutting a sort of double-shuffle on the threshold. He shook hands with the farmer and his wife, and nodded toward Taffy. "So you've got Parson Raymond's boy here!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Joll; and turned to Taffy. "He've come to pray a bit; perhaps you would rather be in the parlor?"

Taffy asked to be allowed to stay; and presently Mr. Pascoe had them all down on their knees. He began by invoking God's protection on the household; but his prayer soon ceased to be a prayer. It broke into ejaculations of praise—"Friends, I be too happy to ask for anything—Glory, glory! The blood! The precious blood! O deliverance! O streams of redemption running!" The farmer and his wife began to chime in—"Hallelujah!" "Glory!" and Lizzie Pezzack to sob. Taffy, kneeling before a kitchen chair, peeped between his palms and saw her shoulders heaving.

The Bryanite sprang to his feet, over-turning the settle with a crash. "Tid'n no use. I must skip. Who'll dance wi' me?"

He held out his hands to Mrs. Joll. She took them, and skipped once shamefacedly. Lizzie, with flaming cheeks, pushed her aside. "Leave me try, mis'ess; I shall die if I don't." She caught the preacher's hands, and the two leapt about the kitchen. "I can dance higher than mis'ess! I can dance higher than mis'ess!" Farmer Joll looked on with a dazed face. "Hallelujah!" "Amen!" he said at intervals, quite mechanically. The pair stood under the bacon rank and began to whirl like dervishes—hands clasped, toes together, bodies leaning back and almost rigid. They whirled until Taffy's brain whirled with them.

With a louder sob, Lizzie let go her hold, and tottered back into a chair, laughing hysterically. The Bryanite leaned against the table, panting.

There was a long pause. Mrs. Joll took a napkin from the dresser and fell to fanning the girl's face, then to slapping it briskly. "Get up and lay the table," she commanded; "the preacher'll stay to supper."

"Thank 'ee, ma'am, I don't care if I do," said he; and ten minutes latter they were all seated at supper and discussing the fall in wheat in the most matter-of-fact voices. Only their faces twitched, now and again.

"I hear you had the preacher down to Joll's last night," said Mendarva the Smith. "What'st think of 'en?"

"I can't make him out," was Taffy's colorless but truthful answer.

"He's a bellows of a man. I do hear he's heating up th' old Squire Moyle's soul, to knack an angel out of 'en. He'll find that a job and a half. You mark my words, there'll be Hamlet's ghost over in your parish one o' these days."

During work-hours Mendarva bestowed most of his talk on Taffy. The Dane seldom opened his lips, except to join in the Anvil Chorus—